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Imagine if the Tea Party Was Black

Let’s play a game, shall we? The name of the game is called “Imagine.” The way it’s played is simple: we’ll envision recent happenings in the news, but then change them up a bit. Instead of envisioning white people as the main actors in the scenes we’ll conjure – the ones who are driving the action – we’ll envision black folks or other people of color instead. The object of the game is to imagine the public reaction to the events or incidents, if the main actors were of color, rather than white. Whoever gains the most insight into the workings of race in America, at the end of the game, wins.

So let’s begin.

Imagine that hundreds of black protesters were to descend upon Washington DC and Northern Virginia, just a few miles from the Capitol and White House, armed with AK-47s, assorted handguns, and ammunition. And imagine that some of these protesters —the black protesters — spoke of the need for political revolution, and possibly even armed conflict in the event that laws they didn’t like were enforced by the government? Would these protester — these black protesters with guns — be seen as brave defenders of the Second Amendment, or would they be viewed by most whites as a danger to the republic? What if they were Arab-Americans? Because, after all, that’s what happened recently when white gun enthusiasts descended upon the nation’s capital, arms in hand, and verbally announced their readiness to make war on the country’s political leaders if the need arose.

Imagine that white members of Congress, while walking to work, were surrounded by thousands of angry black people, one of whom proceeded to spit on one of those congressmen for not voting the way the black demonstrators desired. Would the protesters be seen as merely patriotic Americans voicing their opinions, or as an angry, potentially violent, and even insurrectionary mob? After all, this is what white Tea Party protesters did recently in Washington.

Imagine that a rap artist were to say, in reference to a white president: “He’s a piece of shit and I told him to suck on my machine gun.” Because that’s what rocker Ted Nugent said recently about President Obama…

I shared this on my Blog yesterday, and boy do I wish I could have taken credit for it. But I am quite happy that a White male wrote it.

Gives it more credibility, don't ya know/

RONIN

He he. I liked that one about rap. Y'all should check out the inside cover of Immortal Technique's 'Revolutionary Volume 2.' And his lyrics in the song 'Impeach the President,' “either stand him… where the rifle'll reach 'em, or some bitch give 'em a blowjob so we can impeach 'em.”

Show me a middle aged white conservative protester dodging water cannons and recovering from dogbites and truncheon beatings and I'll applaud. Until then, it just looks like you're a good part of the reason that no whites were in that million man march.

arcocelli

Lame. This is just taking the small percentage of Tea Party people who are nutjobs, who the Left likes to hold up as representative of the movement as a whole and uses that as the basis for his article. I am not a member of the Tea Party or necessarily even a sympathizer but obvious strawman arguments like this should not be taken seriously.

tonyviner

Why not? I have talked to numerous “reasonable and respectable” teabaggers that turned out to be nutjobs, and possibly a little racist the further you get into conversations with them. As 5by5 wrote below you, all you need to do is look at the Black Panthers to see how such a thing would be treated. If you continue to ignore the problem and try to pass it of as okay, saying that the others are the ones being silly, then you only feed the wrong end of the fire, when you (we all?) should be doing everything we can to prevent it from spreading, or just putting it out all together.

RONIN

Well what did the teabaggers say that made you think they were nutjobs and possibly a little racist? And how numerous are we talking here?

tonyviner

15 or 16 of them told me that they thought ALF was the pinnacle of television. That right there proves that they are racist.

RONIN

Those bigoted motherfuckers!

A K

So did you walk up to a group of 15 or 16 people who as group gave you this opinion or get it from 15 or 16 people randomly spread out? Just curious.

Anybody can walk up to any group of people with 1 or 2 loud mouths who say something stupid and then say everybody there felt that way. Or even take the opionion of a few concentrated people and say its the views of the whole. It's like flying into Orlando driving straight to a garbage dump and then reported that the entire city was smelly, filled, with garbage, and had no accomodations or entertainment. Just be careful about labeling people.

And quite frankly if someone is referring to me as a teabagger I would be offended from start. That is a derogatory term. If you don't believe me google the word.

tonyviner

Well, I know that teabagger is an offensive term, that is mostly why I use it. As for labeling people, I try not to do that a whole lot, except where it seems completely necessary, like calling somebody a teabagger for dangling Lipton tea bags from their tri-cornered hat. I just don't know what else to say in a situation like that, “Hey, what is with the tea bags dangling from your tri-cornered hat?” just doesn't seem to cut the mustard.

Tuna Ghost

Are you seriously suggesting that the reaction to a similar movement comprised of people of color would be the same? You are seriously deluded if you believe that to be the case.

Obviously not all Tea Baggers are white supremacists or dangerously ignorant and racist, but enough of them are so that one wonders why the other Tea Baggers would allow themselves to be associated with such undesirable elements. Also, how do you label the actions taken by celebrity members of the party as a “strawman”? These people are invited to speak at the rallys, for god's sake.

Hadrian999

it would make the cointelpro assassinations of black panthers look like child's play

voxmagi

Frankly,. the article is unreasonable and makes some pretty shaky examples…since you don't see armies of Teabaggers with AK47's marching. You get a few concealed carry fellas with pistols…an occasional rifle…thats about it…so unfair example.

But the principle is still sound…if black Americans rallied with that kind of venom and veiled hints of revolution and assassination… the GOP would be calling for the National Guard to kill them all and let God sort them out. They'll all say “Oh, no, its not like that!”

…but I havent forgotten that Fox news had half the GOP shitting its Depends with fear like f&*%ing fairy ass bitches on election day because a black man had been photographed holding a stick outside a polling booth. I haven't seen cowardice on that scale since Cheney's bad 'football' knee kept his pansy ass at home with GW 'Diamond Squadron' Bush …instead of in Vietnam with the real men.

If the shoe was on the other foot…we know how it would go, and no amount of pissing and whining and moaning can make that not true.

http://www.undertheradarmedia.wordpress.com maasanova

Go to the next million man march and then give us a write up.

Nice try on race baiting though. You also forgot to mention all of the black tea party participants. Oh, wait those are just Uncle Tom's right?

voxmagi

oh yeah…forgot those two guys…how are they? Do they still look as nervous as a nine tailed cat in room full of rockers?

R Schloemer

I'm not going to lie… that would be absolutely hilarious. Can you imagine the intensely racist comments people would make when they “Damanded” that English be the official language of the US? When they demanded that taxes be lowered? When everyone wondered why DC police weren't able to shut down this awful gang problem that seemed to be developing? We are so accustomed to stereotypical images of armed, stupid, violent African Americans, the only thing that would confuse people was why they were asking for less social services instead of more. Turnabout is fair play bud.

http://www.autobacklinkservice.com Backlink Service

no problem if it is black… everyone counts….

RONIN

Way to go Timmy. That's what's needed these days, a good injection of racial issues right in the middle of everything, just for the sake of hypothesizing. That surely won't have a polarizing effect.

voxmagi

Lol…true, but really, at this point…if he manages to polarize anyone any further than they already are…shouldn't he get a trophy to commemorate such a herculean effort?

America is and always has been a racist country…it was built on racism, just ask the native americans, african americans, asian americans, Irish and mexicans…they have all suffered the ignorance white stupidity.

N1v3krist

America is and always has been a racist country…it was built on racism, just ask the native americans, african americans, asian americans, Irish and mexicans…they have all suffered the ignorance white stupidity.